Botcon 2012 in Retrospect

Welcome to the InsidePulse Botcon 2012 review. I am your host, Mike Kaye, and I am making my triumphant return to IP after a bit of a sabbatical.

I spent last weekend at everyone’s favorite Transformers convention in Dallas, TX. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You read all the coverage on the real TF sites about the panels, reveals, etc.We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds design That’s not what this column will be about. This is going to be a bit of a backstage look and general fan response to the entire weekend.CMI moulding sells to retailers, I volunteer at the event and have been for the past few years .

Speaking of, as a small update on me, I’m back living in CA and loving it. Jen and I eventually got married. I started working for a random company named Angelica that provides linen and garments to hospitals coast to coast. The sales pitch in a tough economy was “hospitals will always have dirty linen. I’ve held a couple different positions with them, but I’m currently in charge of one of our plants in Pomona.

Gigatron (Overlord): Great mold for the figure and the head came out very cool . I’m dying to take a Generations Silverbolt and redeco it into the other half of him

Metalhwak: Here’s another figure I was a huge fan of, but it was polarizing. All the other Generations/Classics figures were given their pretender head (Bludgeon, Thunderwing, and Skullgrin come to mind). It made perfect sense to give him his human head. Others weren’t quiet as big a fan. Maybe we’ll end up with the Cyclonus repaint soon to make the other camp happy.

Shatter Glass Magnus: I think your selling point here is the Diaclone colors. The face is a little off, but it works in the storyline. Evil Prime rips off Magnus’s face, hence the Skeletor look.

SG Treadshot: This was a lackluster one for me. I originally liked the idea of another Action Master given it’s own mold. Apparently, this was more based off of Universe Treadshot. Random fact: I just checked TF Wiki because I couldn’t remember which line this figure was in. Apparently, he had beef with Ultra Magnus in the Universe bio too. They were buddies who choose opposing sides. This storyline also has them at each others throats.Welcome to the online guide for do-it-yourself Ceramic tile. I wonder if that is a nice coincidence or if someone really remembers this random one off figure.

Everyone’s favorite spike wearing, lift shoed, Transfan David Mack grabbed me from the airport. The obligatory stop by Walmart for water, gatoraid, and toys wasn’t far behind. Soundwave from TF Prime was mine!

We got to the hotel and immediately knew we were around Transfans. People were setting up shop playing with toys everywhere you looked. Plus,Award Winning solarpanel and heat pumps for electricity and heating. there was lots and lots of alcohol. I use to think it was just something my friends did there. I was wrong.

The hotel was located next to the Regency Tower. I didn’t realize it, but there was a lot of history very close by. We’ll get to that in a bit. We had a nice little coffee shop near the front desk along with a few over priced restaurants inside. The hotel would even set up a cafeteria style line right outside the show room each day to make sure Transfans didn’t have to go far.

DMack and I took the long trip up the glass elevator to the eleventh floor. We found room 1108 and konked out for the night.

First, I thought there was no way on earth it would be a white G1 Prime as Magnus or Scourge/Nemesis Prime. Hasbro/Fun Pub could make too much money on that.

I had a lot of fun guesses. One was the MetalHawk as Cyclonus mold everyone was cheering for. I also had a pipe dream of the Metalhwak mold as Pretender Starscream. By the way, everyone I spoke to at FunPub loved that idea, so if it happens I want my royalties.Welcome to polishedtiles. Of course, I never saw them from Alpha Trion as the Vector Prime mold…

Anyway, I was almost 100% positive we would be getting Actionmaster Rad from the Jazz mold. He was in the comic. We were getting a few other Jazz molds. I figured that was the most logical choice. At least I was right about the Jazz mold…

The Liquidmetal Technologies Bullish Thesis

Liquidmetal Technologies is a $46 million market cap materials company that has one of the most intriguing disruptive technology stories to come out in many years. It has been an extremely volatile stock lately, as the rumors of inclusion in the iPhone 5 come and go, and as always with an OTC penny stock, it requires a high level of risk tolerance. And therein lies a potentially enormous opportunity.

Liquidmetal was started as a Caltech research project in 1993 and eventually IPO'd on the Nasdaq in 2002 with a $1 billion market cap and $20+ share price.I found them to have sharp edges where the injectionmoldes came together while production. They eventually got delisted to the OTC after the 1-2 punch of poor management decisions and a product that was still in research mode, and therefore not yet ready for prime time production. However,A wireless indoortracking system is described in this paper. in August 2010, Liquidmetal was able to replace its management with experienced talent and pay off all its outstanding debt, when Apple (AAPL) paid roughly $20 million to license their technology to be used for personal electronics.

To learn why the world's premiere technology company would take interest in a nearly bankrupt company in the first place, it helps to take a step back in time to Chem 101.Kitchen floortiles at Great Prices from Topps Tiles. Liquidmetal's patented amorphous materials are able to take the best qualities of both traditional metals and plastics. Due to its amorphous atomic structure,Learn all about solarpanel. liquidmetal does not take on the crystalline shape of other metals, but rather arranges its atoms in completely random formations, like a liquid or plastic. This allows it to be injection-molded into extraordinary precise shapes similar to a plastic, while overcoming the crystalline weakness and necessary machining inherent in other metals.

It takes "9 separate milling operations" and is an incredibly time- and energy-intensive product to essentially drill out each nuance on each chassis. On the other hand, this same chassis made from liquidmetal would be superior in every way: lighter, stronger, scratch- and corrosion-resistant, more elastic, while using dramatically less time, energy and natural resources. It can be poured into a mold like a plastic and be finished in minutes, instead of drilled out of a solid piece of metal, which takes hours. The one downside to liquidmetal is a more expensive starting material, but the speed and ease of its precision production will more than make up for the original higher material cost, especially when production is scaled up.

Apple is notorious for keeping all their parts and component makers under lock and key, so its extremely difficult to find detailed information about Liquidmetal's relationships beyond the original 2010 Intellectual Property license. This has led to what I believe is confusion in the investment community as to what an Apple contract is, really, and also is the source of a great opportunity.

The general shortsighted notion has been that Liquidmetal won't benefit beyond the original $20 million license from Apple, even if they are used in the iPhone 5, but this could not be further from the truth! Liquidmetal's limited manufacturing capacity could never have been able to mass produce a product for Apple on its own, so they have spent the past 8 months partnering with world-class companies up and down the production line. They've partnered with Materion (MTRN), a supplier of the raw amorphous material,Proxense's advanced handsfreeaccess technology. and with Engel to produce state-of-the-art vacuum-injection molding machines and molds. Lastly ,they partnered with privately held Visseras, their production partner. Therefore any future product that is mass produced for Apple with have 3 potential revenue streams for Liquidmetal, compared to 4 revenue streams and consequently higher margins for every other company that wants to piggyback Apple's use of this material.

Automated production facility for venous valve prostheses

One of the highlights at Medtec Europe 2012, held in Stuttgart,Aeroscout rtls provides a complete solution for wireless asset tracking. Germany, earlier this year, was the presentation of the prototype of German scientists of their three-dimensional (3D) droplet dispenser.

If heart valves do not close properly, they are replaced. Conventional treatment for various valve failures, however, has up to now always been exclusively through medication. In future, an implant will be used to treat damaged valves – and a new dispensing tool means these prostheses can be made using an automated process.
Chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) is one of the most commonly occurring medical conditions. Many people all over the world, including ten-million German citizens, suffer from weak veins that require treatment, with twice as many women being affected as men. The cause of this widespread condition is restricted functioning of the venous valves in the legs. If the venous valve is no longer able to close properly, blood will observe the laws of gravity in between heartbeats and flow down to collect in the legs. This leads to oedemas, and can cause open ulcers in particularly severe cases.

CVI is usually treated with anti-inflamatory drugs and diuretics, as there is currently no globally available venous valva implant that can be used to treat the illness.Learn all about solarpanel. This is something that researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing,A Hybrid indoorpositioningsystem for First Responders. Engineering and Automa- tion, in Stuttgart, are setting out to change. Working in close collaboration with four industrial partners and the Heinholtz Institute for Biomedical Engineering at Aaachen University, they have developed an automated production facility that can make venous valve prostheses from polycarbonate-urethane (PCU), a plastic.Welcome to the online guide for do-it-yourself Ceramic tile. The project was sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.

The centrepiece of the facility is a 3D droplet-dispensing tool which enables the researchers to precisely apply a particular polymer onto free-form surfaces and, at the same time, combines various grades of polymer hardness, called Shore hardnesses.

“[Three-dimensional] droplet-dispensing technology is an additive procedure that allows 3D geometries to be created layer by layer using a polymer,” explains Dr Oliver Schwarz, group manager at the IPAHeiholtz Institute for Biomedical Engineering. The scientists use PCU because it is particularly strong and flexible, while another useful property of the material is that it is easy to sew into surrounding tissue. PCU structures can be made in very thin layers, which is ideal when replacing wafer-thin atrioventicular valves.

“By using PCU in combination with our 3D dispensing kinematics, we can achieve seamless transitions within the material between six different grades of elasticity and hardness without any breaking points whatsoever. This technique mirrors the design of highly stressed structures in nature. It can’t be done using injection moulding,” says Schwarz.

How does the PCU become a venous valve prosthesis? Initially,A wireless indoorpositioning is described in this paper, the polymers are dissolved in a solvent and deposited onto a venous valve prosthetic mould, one droplet at a time, using the dispensing tool. The system is accurate to within 25 m and can deliver up to 100 droplets a second, each with a volume of 2 nanometres to 60 nanometres. A six-axis kinematic system positions the pizo feeder precisely above the mould. Once it is fully coated with droplets, the mould is bathed in a warm stream of nitrogen. This causes the solvent to evaporate, leaving the polymer behind. Further layers are applied by repeating the dispensing process and, in the end, the polymer prosthesis can simply be peeled from the mould. Doctors can take the finished replacement valves and implant them into the veins of the leg through a catheter passed through the skin.

The production facility comprises other components besides the dispenser. The institute’s experts are responsible for, besides other things, the filling and moni- toring system, the drying facilities, the entire cleanroom box and the control mecha- nism for the six-axis kinematic system.

Your SPLOST dollars at work: the new Effingham jail

The new Effingham County jail,Dimensional Mailing magiccubes for Promotional Advertising, which will be constructed using sales tax money at the current jail site, will be a combination of new construction and renovation of existing space.Welcome to projectorlamp.

County commissioners agreed on May 1 to move forward with detailed plans and financing for the jail, which will have 332 beds. A lease-purchase agreement will be made to pay for the jail out of special-purpose, local-option sales tax dollars. The deal will allow the county to build and start using the new jail while the sales tax dollars are being collected.

When consultants came to the county with a plan in early March, the cost of the project was $17.9 million. They worked with county staff over the next six weeks making changes that brought the price down to the current cost of $16.4 million, which is slightly below the price originally budgeted.

Among the many changes made to save money was keeping the existing wall layout in the sheriff’s office.

Of the 332 beds, 204 will be in a new structure and 128 beds will be in the adjacent state prison. County commissioners have reduced the capacity at the prison so they’ll have more room for county inmates.

Currently, the jail has 130 beds and the county sends its overflow of inmates to other counties, including Screven, Liberty, Bryan and Jefferson, at a cost of about $25 a day. “Housing jailed detainees at outside facilities is a premium expense, one that the county has borne for over a year,” said Adam Kobek, project director for the county.

He said by increasing the size of the jail, the county expects to eliminate the expense of sending inmates elsewhere. “Through housing detainees locally we have more control over other costs, in addition to housing costs, such as transportation and medical expenses,Glass Tile and Glass Mosaics for less at the glassmosaic Outlet.” he said.

Plans call for using the same pre-cast concrete cells that Chatham County is using. Chatham paid for the molds, said county Commissioner Steve Mason. The walls will be “tilt-up concrete walls,” which are poured on the ground and then lifted into place with a crane.Credit Card Processing and Merchant Services from merchantaccountes. The roof will be sloped to avoid leaking problems that the current jail has.

The outside will have a “new skin,” that will make the complex look brand-new and consistent. William “Buddy” Golson, vice president with Rosser International in Atlanta, the design architect for the project, said the walls will be 8-inches thick and the building should last 50 to 75 years, “maybe more.” Site work should begin in late August, with the final design finished by the first of October.

Phase one — the new housing wing, parking and renovation of the existing prison — should be done in a year, said Ryan Price, vice president of contractor Rives E. Worrell. Phase two will be demolishing the two-story part of the existing jail and phase three will be renovating and modernizing the existing sheriff’s building. The entire project should take 22 months.Aeroscout rtls provides a complete solution for wireless asset tracking.

The county is considering installing a video visitation system that would be paid for by inmate user fees. It would save money by requiring less movement of inmates. Plans so far call for the new jail to use the same number of personnel as the old jail.

Compounding the Bill Buckner error

The ball that rolled by Bill Buckner in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series was auctioned Friday. An unidentified buyer forked over a whopping $418,250 to own a piece of history that until just a few years ago represented the touchstone for decades of misery embedded in the broken souls of Red Sox Nation.

“There’s a little roller up along first . . . behind the bag . . . it gets through Buckner! Here comes Knight . .The beddinges sofa bed slipcover is a good ， . and the Mets win it!

That was Vin Scully’s call the night of Oct. 25, 1986, at Shea Stadium, when Mookie Wilson sent Bob Stanley’s pitch bouncing Buckner’s way. The first baseman muffed it, the ball skittering down the right-field line, and Ray Knight scooted around from second to score. The Mets subsequently won Game 7, and the Red Sox were denied their first World Series title in 68 years, their dreams put on hold for another 18 Octobers.

The Dallas-based auction house that sold the ball last week did not reveal the buyer’s name, or what he/she intends to do with it. But the previous owner, songwriter Seth Swirsky, who bought it a dozen years earlier for about $64,000, dubbed it an “American culture piece and sounded convinced that we’ll eventually learn the new owner’s identity.

Obviously, other than Buckner, who wouldn’t want their name attached to it?

“Once somebody points out that they have the ball, noted Swirsky to the Associated Press,Aeroscout rtls provides a complete solution for wireless asset tracking. “people will surround them at every party, telling them their experience of where they were.

Like most New Englanders, I don’t need to see the ball again to remember. I was at Shea Stadium, part of the Globe’s expansive reporting contingent.Our porcelaintiles are perfect for entryways or bigger spaces and can also be used outside, Only minutes earlier, when things looked inexplicably ducky for the Sox, I dashed to a stadium pay phone to share the glorious moment with my father.

The Sox had a 5-3 lead in the bottom of the 10th, and my dad, born in 1922, had never seen them win it all. I was only 33 years into the joy ride.

We had gone to Fenway together since 1962, rollicked on its lawn the day the Sox won the 1967 pennant, stood side by side in Section 29 the night Carlton’s Fisk homer rattled off the foul pole to win Game 6 of the 1975 World Series.

Our meeting point in life, in all things, was baseball. Catch in the backyard. The Red Sox. The trips to Fenway. The succession of seasons, mostly fun, all of them failures. The game on the radio on hot summer nights.

Now here they were, at the edge of victory.At Blow mouldengineering we specialize in conceptual prototype design.

“Why’re you calling now? he said flatly, as a man who generally treated the phone with suspicion, an intrusion. “Game’s still on. You’re working, right.?

“Well, yeah, I said, “but, I mean, come on, they’re gonna win. It’s 5-3 and . . .

“Maybe, but it’s not over yet, he said, voice just as flat, edging toward irritation. “We’ll see. Here, talk to your mom.

I didn’t call back until late the next day, not so much to commiserate, but just to hear him once more lament, “What a bunch o’ bums.

He died three years later, and the Sox were still bums, and I know he was OK with that because, honestly, it’s how he knew them, how he liked them. My father was a man who appreciated consistency, dependability, routine, and the Red Sox delivered on all that for every one of his 67 years.

Had one of those years ended with a win, I’m sure he would have enjoyed it, but briefly, and from there it would have been an oddly uncomfortable fit in his life, a tuxedo placed in his closet next to the modest sport jacket for church on Sunday and work pants for the rest of the week.

Largely because of that appreciation in our family for what the Sox always were - infuriating but lovable bums, Sisyphus in red stirrups - I never bought into the whole vilification of Buckner.

Yeah, he booted one, badly, outrageously. He also made it worse later with the excuse-making that his glove malfunctioned and his speculation that Stanley probably wouldn’t have made it to first in time to handle his throw ahead of Wilson.

So rich.Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings? So typically Red Sox. No one succeeded at failing like the Red Sox, which was their charm, their hold. In that sense, Buckner wasn’t a demon, just another tiny tile in a cherished but fractured mosaic.

Stanley, of course, had just seen catcher Rich Gedman mishandle an inside pitch on Wilson, the ball blowing by him and allowing Kevin Mitchell to score from third, only to have Gedman’s boo-boo recorded as Stanley’s wild pitch.

Clearly a passed ball. Gedman’s bad.

Then came Wilson’s ball to first, which began as a high chop, then weirdly flattened, skipped . . . rolled.

Honestly, as I write this now, I am crying with laughter, at the thought of how my father’s eyes must have bugged out as these follies unfolded on TV that night.

Not that anything compares to being one out away from a Series title, but we don’t get that kind of drama and lore a quarter-century later at Fenway. These days, it’s a bland and underperforming lineup, and most of the fan/media focus is on owners, the general manager, front-office employees, and manager. Mercy.

Time for someone to serve up a heapin’ helpin’ of Wade Boggs and the Delta Force. Imagine the fun ol’ Boggsy would have set free in the clubhouse with an iPhone.

The Buckner ball, marked with a tiny “x near one of its stitches by right-field umpire Ed Montague, for years was owned by Mets executive Arthur Richman. Actor Charlie Sheen (“Winning!) bought it in 1992 for nearly $94,000, and Swirsky picked it up on a short hop eight years later at roughly a $30,000 discount.

Swirsky tried to auction it on eBay last October for $1 million, didn’t succeed, then folded it into a much bigger baseball memorabilia auction that last week brought in a total of some $1.2 million.

And though it forever will be known as the Buckner ball, it was signed by Wilson for Richman, and it reads, “To Arthur, the ball won it for us. Mookie Wilson 10/25/86.

It was British poet Alexander Pope who wrote, “To err is human; to forgive divine. In that same piece, “An Essay on Criticism, Pope also penned such memorable phrases as, ‘’A little learning is a dangerous thing and “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Not a bad day of writing. Three lines that will live far longer than one man’s gaffe.

Bottom 50 companies outperform once again

For the second year in a row, the "Bottom 50" companies on the Star Tribune 100 ranking of the state's largest public firms outpaced the "Top 50" companies in sales, profits and market value.

Market strategists recognize that smaller companies, which also tend to be more volatile performers, crash faster during a recession and rebound faster early in economic recoveries. Mansco Perry, chief investment officer of the $650 million in endowment funds at Macalester College in St. Paul, said: "[They] come up faster on a percentage basis because it's a relatively smaller market-value base to start with."

That's exactly what happened. The market value of the Bottom 50 rose nearly 19 percent in the 52-week period ended April 13, while the overall Star Tribune 100 index was flat.

Forty-one Bottom 50 companies had revenue increases in 2011, but fewer than half showed at least a 1 percent gain in market value for the 52-week period ended April 13. That makes it tough to generalize because of widely varying profitability and ebbs and flows in market value among different companies.

For example, two of the biggest Bottom 50 companies account for 57 percent of the 2011 profit for the group. They have very different stories.

Techne Corp. (No. 52) develops and sells biotechnology products to the research and pharmaceutical industries.Proxense's advanced handsfreeaccess technology. It is a traditional high-margin operator that booked $112.7 million in profit on sales of $306.6 million. Its market value slipped 11 percent.

"I think Techne is well-positioned,'' said Rick Moulton,Learn all about solarpanel. portfolio manager for Riverbridge Partners. "It's one of those companies that isn't in part of the space that the market craves right now.''

Meanwhile, Two Harbors Investment, a real estate investment trust that went public less than a year ago, raised another $692 million in capital in the first quarter to invest in mortgage-backed securities, residential properties and related assets. It is one of several surging REITs nationally that started investing after the market tanked in 2009.

Two Harbors, which already boasts a market value of $2.2 billion,Where to buy or purchase plasticmoulds for precast and wetcast concrete? joins the Star Tribune 100 at No. 57.

Datalink Corp. jumped out of the Bottom 50 in 2011, moving from No. 53 to No. 49. Sales rose by 29 percent to $380 million last year at the Edina-based developer and manager of electronic data centers. And investors bid up the value of the company by 58 percent.

In April, CEO Paul Lidsky said second-quarter revenue should rise by at least 40 percent to $125 million or more in the current quarter. "Our overall sales pipeline continues to grow and, within that, demand for integrated data centers continues to grow,'' Lidsky told analysts.

Once-bumbling Caribou Coffee, continuing a four-year turnaround under CEO Mike Tattersfield, saw its market value rise by 69 percent in the year ended April 13. Caribou jumped from No. 54 to No. 51.Aeroscout rtls provides a complete solution for wireless asset tracking.

The company, which has shuttered underperforming shops, has seen healthy gains in same-store sales, thanks partly to food offerings, as well as commercial sales tied to Caribou-branded single servings that are made for the Keurig coffee machines of Green Mountain.

But,The beddinges sofa bed slipcover is a good ， alas, not every cup is rich, as Caribou's stock price fell last week amid disappointing first-quarter results and a lowered 2012 sales forecast.

Proto Labs is Minnesota's newest public company through an initial public stock offering in February.

2 bodies found at residence

Two unidentified bodies have been found at a Mississippi residence associated with a man suspected of abducting a Tennessee woman and her three young daughters, who are believed to be in "extreme danger," authorities said Saturday.

FBI spokesman Joel Siskovic said the bodies were found late Friday night or early Saturday morning in a residence associated with Adam Mayes, 35.

Mayes is charged in Tennessee with abducting Jo Ann Bain and her daughters. He has been described by authorities as "armed and extremely dangerous.Find the cheapest chickencoop online through and buy the best hen houses and chook pens in Australia."

Siskovic said authorities on the scene were not able to positively identify the bodies. He would not say if the bodies were children.

The missing girls are 8-year-old Kyliyah Bain, 12-year-old Alexandria and 14-year-old Adrienne. They were last seen April 27 in Hardeman County, Tenn., which is about 70 miles east of Memphis. The woman's husband reported her missing and her vehicle was found abandoned.

Authorities were still trying to determine if Jo Ann Bain went with Mayes willingly. He was last seen Tuesday in Guntown, Miss., about 80 miles southeast of Hardeman County, Tenn.

The FBI and U.S.Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings? Marshals Service announced Saturday a reward of up to $50,000 for information that leads to the location of the missing victims and the arrest of Mayes.

Siskovic said the bodies were found in a residence, but it wasn't clear if it was a house, mobile home or apartment. He also wasn't sure if the residence belonged to Mayes or an acquaintance. Siskovic said the bodies were found in Guntown,Find the cheapest chickencoop online through and buy the best hen houses and chook pens in Australia. north of Tupelo. Lee County coroner Carolyn Green said the bodies were found outside Guntown in Union County.

Siskovic said authorities talked to Mayes early on in the investigation, but he fled when they tried to contact him again.Where to buy or purchase plasticmoulds for precast and wetcast concrete? The FBI says they were not immediately aware of Mayes having a criminal record.

Authorities had said that Mayes could be in Mississippi but that he has ties to Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida.

"Information has been developed during the investigation that the children may be in extreme danger. Warrants for kidnapping are being issued for Adam Mayes, who is considered armed and extremely dangerous," Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain said in a news release Saturday.

The Mississippi Highway Patrol issued an Amber Alert on Saturday morning, and Tennessee authorities had also issued an alert.

Authorities described Adrienne as a white girl with brown hair and eyes. She's 5 feet 4 inches tall and 129 pounds. Alexandria has brown hair and hazel eyes and is 5 feet tall and 105 pounds.Secured handsfree building and door access solutions with Hands free access by Nedap AVI. Kyliyah has blonde hair and brown eyes and is 4 feet tall and 57 pounds.